Forum Guidelines

Welcome to the Fusion Gameworks forums! We hope you'll enjoy yourself here and be mindful of the following guidelines, written to maintain order and proper operation of the forums.

As human behavior is a diverse subject, we cannot possibly cover all mannerisms that could result in chaos and disorder. Because of this, the Fusion Team reserves the right to warn, restrict privileges of, suspend, or indefinitely ban anyone for any behavior they feel worthy of correction or punishment. In general, exercise common sense and act in a civil manner, and you shouldn't have much trouble.

0. The Stupidity Rule

Or Rule Zero, if you want to sound cool. In general, you should think before you post, try to figure things on your own, and exercise common sense and courtesy. Failure to do so typically results in frustration for others, which is why this rule exists. This rule is a bit broad and vague, so here are some examples of infringement:

* Not paying attention to people who have posted in a topic or the shoutbox before yourself--or even worse, not paying attention to a post you quoted.* Not paying attention to the criticism of others. If no one thinks highly of you, maybe you should FIX that instead of, you know, pretending not a single word was said against you.* Not using Google or the Forum Search to look for answers to simple questions.* Nitpicking someone's silly posts around April Fool's Day.* Using images from sites with limited bandwidth and refusing to replace it if asked to do so.* Starting an argument over a minor issue, then revealing you didn't disagree on principle at all.

An offender of the stupidity rule is annoying and frustrating to the moderation team, not to mention other members, and will therefore be dealt with accordingly.

I. Antisocial behavior

There is something about the internet that turns otherwise ordinary people into contemptible little wretches. Or perhaps it just shows their true colors. We may not be legally responsible for anything you say, and free speech might be for the greater good, but neither of those gives you a license to spew diarrhea from your mouth all over the forum.

1. Flaming

Hostile interaction between internet users. Falls under one of the following:

* Gratuitous insults: Hopefully you would understand that calling someone a retard is not an acceptable response to that person making an accidental mistake. Tends to enrage others and start flame wars, which is never good.* Racial/other slurs: You know those words that are intended to put down specific groups of people? Yeah. Assuming you are for example a racist and that the concept of people with different skin colors being your equal is beyond your feeble wisdom, one would hope you at least have the sense not to let everyone know about it.* Threats of violence: We don't care what someone else said, there is no reason whatsoever to threaten someone with violence to themselves, someone they love, or their property. This is a CRIMINAL OFFENSE in many jurisdictions and will not be tolerated, resulting in a quick ban and potentially a lovely little message sent to your local authorities if we think you're serious enough.* Curses: "I hope you die in a fire" and so forth. Most of these would require divine intervention to work, and most deities most of the time would not comply to the demands of a hateful imp.* Elitism: If someone isn't doing great in a post or whatnot, that isn't necessarily an excuse to bash them for it.* Vendetta topics/bashing/other flamebait: if you have a problem with other members, usually there is a better way to handle it than creating a topic for the sole purpose of attacking them. We suggest settling your issues in private.

Please note that we do not consider any blunt remarks to be flaming (even if they might be a bit insulting), provided they are based on observed fact and not gratuitous in nature.

2. Trolling

An internet troll is someone who spreads chaos wherever he goes, trying to garner negative responses or otherwise cause disruption for his own amusement. The troll does whatever he can to press as many buttons as possible, deliberately breaking several forum rules in the process.

Trolling is inherently sadistic, causing pain to others for one's own amusement. For this reason, we see it as socially unacceptable, and thus it will result in a quick ban. This is one of those things that may result in a quick permanent ban for newbies.

Q. "Y SO SRS?"

A. Of course, there will be people who love to justify their antisocial behavior by claiming it was a joke, and therefore it shouldn't be taken seriously, even though it is obviously offensive in nature. If you have this sentiment, then please allow us to provide a few well thought out words that may be of vital interest to you:

SHUT UP.

Q. "But you're censoring free speech!"

A. And you're making stupid straw man arguments because you want to act like a rabid Tasmanian devil and not be held accountable for it! I rest my case.

II. Pointless nonsense

Things that no sensible person really wants to see, but for some reason they pop up anyway.

3. Spam

Supposedly an abbreviation of "Stupid, Pointless, Annoying Messages." This covers the following:

* Messages with very little or no text: It might be ignored if it happens infrequently, but make a pattern out of it and we'll have a problem.* Irrelevant, off-topic posts, images, videos, or attachments: No one cares about pictures of random LOLcats in the middle of a discussion about how to play as Sonic in MKF. THERE IS NO RELATION AND IT MAKES ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE.* Posting images that are just plain huge (like Xbox, even): Link to them instead (We recommend that you upload images to an image host like TinyPic, ImageShack, or Photobucket, as hotlinking steals bandwidth.).* Quoting entire posts, when the post in question is just plain huge (lots of text, lots of or large images, or videos), ESPECIALLY if your post would be very short without it.* Posting pointlessly large walls of text.* Posting content that may cause epileptic seizures. Oh, you think it's funny, don't you? It might not seem so funny after a ban.* Grammar Nazism: A missing comma or a few misspelled words in a whole post do not warrant an arrogant English grammar lesson, thanks. Incidentally, it seems that a Grammar Nazi post is very likely to contain a grammatical error itself, which would just make you look silly.* Illiteracy Communism: On the flip side, no one really wants to struggle to understand what you are typing into your posts. * Asking for a promotion to forum staff: The answer is NO. Prove yourself worthy and in due time you will be promoted. Asking repeatedly makes you look like an immature whiner and therefore LESS worthy.* Polls with only one choice: because having only one option for an opinion is just plain dumb.* Polls with unnecessarily many choices, because honestly who cares?* Annoying usage of smileys and font/layout styles (color, size, what have you). Don't abuse CSS, either.* Double-posting and so forth: Wait at least 24 hours before posting again if no one has posted after your previous post. If you really have to say something new, why don't you just edit your previous post?

And here's a bit of advice: try searching on Google or our forums for answers to any questions before you ask them. Answering questions that didn't need to be asked is tedious, man.

4. Necroposting

If a topic is more than a month old and you have nothing of value to contribute to it, don't post in it. That's pretty much it.

III. Specific Content

Then there's the stuff that doesn't need to be posted, whether it's illegal or not safe for work or just plain wrong or whatever. And there's the stuff that can be posted, but must be handled with care. Read below for more details.

5. Illegal Content

Some content may be forbidden under United States law, and therefore should not be posted on the forums:

* Pirated software (ROMs, cracks, keygens, etc.): Discussion of certain software (e.g. ROM hacks) are fine, but for legal reasons we cannot allow you to post any copies of software which would infringe on held copyrights.* Anything that falls foul of civil or criminal law, really. We reserve the right to contact your local authorities if necessary.

6. Not Safe For Work Material

Anything that is not safe for work while yet being relevant to a topic must be linked to instead of posted in the topic--and should also come with a NSFW disclaimer. Discussions about porn and such are not suitable for this forum at all and thus are prohibited entirely. In general, if you wouldn't share it in school or your work area, don't post it here.

Post it here and you will be punished severely.

7. Controversial Topics

Some sensitive topics are allowed (e.g. politics and religion) in the Off-topic board. In a controversial topic, you must show respect to all posters, no matter how vile, stupid, or wrong you think they are. If you come across a provocative post, report it to the moderation team instead of replying to it. And if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

IV. Miscellaneous

Guidelines that have not been categorized.

8. Staff Respect

Site staff members should be given respect. If they ask for you to follow specific instructions, you will need to abide by them. Speaking of which:

* Follow the rules of forums with guidelines specific to them.* Do not sass moderators or admins or argue with them over the enforcement of specific rules.* If you MUST question a moderator's actions, do so by sending him a private message. Or, if that doesn't work, send an administrator a private message. * Do not "backseat mod", by which we mean chastising other users about breaking guidelines. That's our job, and we have the clout and power to enforce them.* Report rule-breaking posts to the site staff with the "report to moderator" link in the bottom right of posts instead of replying to the offending post.

9. Live Chat (formerly the Shoutbox)

All rules in the forum guidelines apply to the live chat. Do not flood the live chat. This means posting too many chat lines in a row (more than four [4]) in a short period of time.

10. Other

* Do not make duplicate accounts, as you have no need for them unless you are trying to evade a ban.* Do not make whiny drama queen emo topics (e.g. threatening to leave).* Again, report offending posts with the "report to moderator" link at the bottom right of posts instead of replying to the post!* Not so much a rule, but we delete accounts that haven't been around for months (i.e. at least 60 days) with very few posts. If you want to keep your account, post!

That seems to be everything. We reserve the right to modify the guidelines as we see fit, in case something comes up which isn't adequately covered by them.